


A Moment of Clarity

by mageswagger



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 07:31:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3200738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mageswagger/pseuds/mageswagger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on this prompt: "varric realizing he is massively attracted to cass"</p>
<p>Varric starts having dreams about the Seeker, and he realizes that somewhere along the lines his feelings for her changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Moment of Clarity

The first time Varric considered Cassandra in any context outside of their professional relationship and tentative friendship was in a dream. It had started out simply enough; in his dream the group was moving through the Hinterlands, complaining all the while, when suddenly a group of Venatori mages had attacked them. Cassandra had been captures and it had been placed solely on Varric’s shoulders to rescue her, and when he had burst into the castle, Bianca leaving a trail of bodies in his wake, she had been dressed in this ridiculous dress that the real Cassandra would never wear, swooning like the real Cassandra never would, and as helpless as a newborn kitten. Something else Cassandra would likely never be. He had saved the day, rescuing her from a dragon (which made no sense, even to his dream self, because if anyone was going to be rescuing _anyone_ from a dragon, it would be Cassandra rescuing _him)._ As thanks she had kissed him.

That was when he woke and knew something weird was going on.

He thought about it that day, considering what the dream meant; he wasn’t going to immediately jump to the conclusion that he _wanted_ Cassandra, because he’d had several strange dreams involving people that he knew for a fact that he would never want in any way beyond friendship. So he had to think of it logically.

Obviously, Cassandra had been the victim because she was royalty. Not quite a princess, but still royalty. The dress was because she was a princess, the kiss because everyone knows how the old ‘go rescue the princess’ story ended, and he was the hero because, well. It was his dream. Who didn’t want to imagine themselves a hero every now and again?

After some brief deliberation, he wrote it off as his storytelling getting the best of him. He didn’t think of the dream for a while after that.

Weeks passed and their tentative friendship turned into an honest one. The dream returned, and he waved it off. But then it kept returning, and with each rerun came a different ending. Things gradually changed from completely unlikely to slightly plausible. She wasn’t a princess in danger – she was a warrior, the last of two standing as they tried to bring down a steadily staggering dragon. Fire belted down on her, which she deflected with her shield like it was child’s play, and Varric kept the pressure from a distance. Arrows buried themselves along the dragons brow, piercing through armored flesh but never quite deep enough to maim. The dragon roared as Cassandra’s blade sunk into it’s hindquarters, swooping it’s tail dangerously close to the warrior. A kick of it’s leg had Cassandra flying backwards, and it was left to Varric to defeat the noble beast. He did so with Bianca in a matter of bursts – completely unlikely in real life, but anything was possible in a dream. Once the beast was felled he rushed to Cassandra’s side, the picture of a concerned lover, and she had smiled at him and kissed him till he woke with tingling lips and the wish that it had been real.

He told himself he just wanted her gratitude – that was all. A wish for recognition. Even still, a part of him knew he was lying to himself. Varric never really wanted recognition of so-called heroic deeds or feats of manliness. All he wanted was to write his books. Maybe that was it. He hadn’t wished the kiss had been real – just the gratitude.

Ever since he’d seen that look on her face – the small smile, the light in her eyes, the way her entire body softened while she held the latest chapter of Swords and Shields like it was the most important thing in the world to her – he’d wished that look had been directed at him. It was, in a way, but not the way he wanted, and now he couldn’t stop dreaming of her.

Finally, when he woke sweaty with an ache in his blood he rarely felt for anyone outside of Bianca – the Bianca, not the crossbow – he knew that something somewhere along the lines had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Not that there was anything wrong with the Seeker. No. Cassandra was fine – more than fine, really – but she was fine. He didn’t want her to change. He liked her the way she was. But the day that he got a hard-on for a woman who had nearly stabbed him in the crotch was the day that he had to really sit and think about his priorities.

So that was what he did. He sat, and he thought, and he concluded that he had lost his damn mind. That dealt with, he shoved the thoughts away into a chest in the back of his mind and refused to acknowledge them again.

Funny thing about refusing to acknowledge something, though, was that you always had the bad habit of acknowledging that something even more.

One day, Varric noticed that her braid looked a little lopsided – which was weird. Normally it didn’t move, as if it was plastered to her head. “You alright, Seeker?” he asked. She looked at him, blinking out her confusion, and he motioned to his head as he said: “You’re a little lopsided.”

“Oh!” She lifted her hands to her hair and, to his surprise, pulled the braid right off of her head. His brow went up. It was a headband. Truly, he never really knew how she got that braid to go around her head, and he had assumed it was a rat tail, or maybe a mullet, or maybe she just had thin hair. Apparently all his theories had been wrong.

Cassandra seemed unaware of what he was thinking as she adjusted the headband, sliding it into place with practiced ease. She looked to him. “Is that better?”

He just gave her a thumbs up, still a little to disbelieving to offer her any convincing words. She nodded. “Thank you, Varric.”

“Not a problem,” he said, watching her as she walked away.

That night, he dreamt of his fingers twisted in her hair – sans braided hair band – as his lips kissed hers and their hips moved together. He woke with a need that made him groan and force his face into his pillow.

If thoughts of her damn hair were enough to invoke dreams like that, he knew he was screwed.

…

Cassandra was a woman who rarely got out of sorts. Varric could count the times she’d been compromised on one hand – and that had been when he revealed he actually _had_ known where Hawke was the whole time. She’d been livid, and though at the time he wanted nothing to do with the Seeker, he understood her rage. She was going through a rough time. It made sense to try and blame things on people, because it’s always easier to blame someone than to blindly accept it. He knew she blamed herself. He knew she blamed Corypheus. But after the initial argument, he also knew she didn’t really blame him or Hawke. That had been her emotions talking. That had been her pain.

He hadn’t gone with the team to confront the Lord Seeker, but the Inquisitor had explained what happened in hushed tones, and he knew that Cassandra wasn’t going to be alright. It wasn’t really his place to talk to her about it, but he couldn’t ignore it. He liked her. Had a massive crush on her that made him feel like a total prat. And she was hurting.

He walked to her quarters, knocking on the door as he entered. The Seeker was sitting at her desk, her face buried in her arms, and a large tankard of ale at her side. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen Cassandra drink more than a small glass at a time. That alone sent an alarm bell off in his head.

“Seeker?” he asked.

She glanced up at him, the makeup around her eyes less deliberately smoky and more smudged to the void and back. She shook her head, sitting up more fully and running her hand down her face. “What is it, Varric?” she asked. Her voice wasn’t harsh, or dismissive. Tired, yes, but not rude, and he took that as a good sign.

“Well, I was going to offer to drink with you in the tavern,” he said, “but it looks like you’ve already started in on that.”

Cassandra smiled slightly. “I apologize. Next time I will wait for you to offer before I decide to drink myself into a stupor.”

He chuckled slightly, though still concerned. “I wouldn’t call it a stupor just yet,” he said. “You’re looking at me with both eyes, and you’re accent isn’t nearly garbled enough. You’ve still got a ways to go.”

She laughed under her breath, shaking her head as she leaned back in her chair. Though her words and her actions were relaxed, her expression was not. Her lips were pursed too tightly, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes too pronounced. She was young still – possibly the youngest in the Inquisition, outside of Cole and Sera – and it was strange seeing her look so tired.

“I do not normally act like this,” she apologized, running her fingers through her hair and displacing her headband. “But it has been a long day.”

Varric chuckled under his breath. “I know exactly where you’re coming from, Seeker.”

She looked at him, her eyes a little clearer and her face a little softer. “Yes,” she agreed. “I suppose you do.”

That made him uncomfortable. He didn’t want to talk about what she was no doubt comparing her situation to. He shook his head, straightening and moving towards her. “Come on, Seeker. You need to lay down, sleep this off. You’ll feel better in the morning if you give yourself a chance to sleep on it.”

She gave a long suffering sigh even as she stood, wobbling slightly on her feet before crossing to her bed, where she plopped down with a lack of grace that wasn’t entirely unanticipated. He shook his head as she kicked off her boots, nearly toppling sideways as she did, and lifted the blankets to help her get situated. She curled up, fingers holding the blankets to her chin, and looked at him with half-lidded eyes that were far more becoming than he expected.

“Thank you, Varric,” she said.

“What for?” he asked. He hadn’t really done anything.

“Everyone keeps trying to talk to me about it,” she said, closing her eyes and resting her cheek against the pillow. “Trying to help me, saying why and how and that it isn’t my fault. They have good intentions. But I prefer they treat me just the same.”

He made a mental note of that. He gently patted her shoulder. “Take a nap, Seeker.”

She reached out as he made to move away, her fingers catching his and holding his hand. What? Holding his hand? He looked at her in confusion.

“Thank you, Varric,” she said again. “And I’m sorry.”

His brow went up. “Sorry? What for?”

“For trying to punch you,” she listed. “For interrogating you. For almost stabbing you. For doubting you.”

He awkwardly scratched the back of his head. “Don’t worry about it, Seeker. We’ve moved past that.”

She shook her head. “Still. I have been treating you poorly, even though you are an ally. Even though I consider you a friend. For that, I am sorry.”

Shit, she was really out of it. Varric shook his head, gave her hand a reassuring squeeze before placing it back on top of the bed. “It’s alright, Seeker. So long as you don’t try and stab me again, we’ll be fine. I don’t hold grudges.”

Cassandra laughed, pulling her hand back under the covers as she curled up. “That is good to know,” she murmured.

Varric shook his head pulling back and heading out of the room. Makers breath, he was screwed.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! this is also posted on my tumblr (mythal-rising) but I really liked how this turned out, so I posted it here. This may or may not wind up with some continuations, though! Hope you all enjoyed (:


End file.
